Page 20 of Midnight Surrounds Us

Sighing heavily, she said, “Thank you for the loan, Ryder, but Iwillpay you back. And I don’t know what you think pretendin’ to date me will do for you, but maybe this is a mistake.”

“Oh, ho,” I laughed. “Don’t you go thinkin’ you’re gettin’ out of this, Spitfire. You said yes. I paid your bill, and now you’re gonna help me too. I’ve got it all planned out. We’re gonna go for a drive, eat, and then I’ll lay it all out for you. By the end of the night, if you still think it can’t work, then you’ll be free to say so, but until then, relax. Sit back and tell me what you wanna listen to.”

I fumbled with the dash screen until I found a Zach Bryan song and turned it up a tic. She didn’t protest, so I left it on.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed her leg next to my hat on the console between us. She fiddled with her shirt, the dainty gold necklace around her neck, and then she released herhair from its bun. When thick, strawberry-blond waves cascaded over her shoulders, I held my breath. If I got any more turned on at this point in our date, she wouldn’t take me seriously.

But then she lifted my hat and laid it in her lap, and I had to bite back a moan.

It was the second time in one day she’d touched my hat. Maybe it was only silly cowboy folklore, but a man’s hat was an extension of his body, and when she touched it, it was like the gentlest caress over my skin. Goosebumps rose on the back of my neck, and as she ran one finger lightly over the brim, I swore I could’ve come right then and there ’cause all I could picture was her soft fingertip doing that to the head of my dick.

In the circles I usually ran, if a woman touched a man’s hat, held it, wore it, she’d claimed that man.

Damn, what I wouldn’t do to be claimed by Aubrey.

When she asked, “So what’s this big plan of yours? Where are we goin’?” I resisted the urge to rearrange the baseball bat in my jeans. Putting my hand anywhere near it would definitely draw her attention.

“I’m takin’ you somewhere we can talk.”

“Okay…?”

Nodding to the back seat, I said, “We’re goin’ on a picnic.”

She twisted to see the basket of food sitting there next to my discarded shirt, and the cooler I’d brought with white wine and a couple beers, in case she was in the mood for that.

“Rye, it’s seven at night.”

“Yeah, so?”

“Little late for a picnic, don’t you think?”

“Nope,” I said, “not the way I planned it. Relax and don’t you worry ’bout a thing. You will be fed and satisfied before the night is through.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

AUBREY

A cowboy?Really, Aubrey?

And young.

What the hell was I doing? Oh, right. I was taking a chance and trying to save my business just like everyone kept telling me to. Although,Pretty Womanprobably wasn’t what my friends had envisioned when they’d told me to “go get some.”

And how exactly did Ryder Graves think he was going to “satisfy” me?

When we parked in the middle of nowhere, on a roadside lookout off Highway 10, I stared at him, waiting for an explanation. Pulling off on the side of some lonely mountain road wasnotmy idea of a “date.”

Actually, maybe it was. There were no tourists or crowds here. Highway 10 was usually deserted this time of night.

Rye reached for my hand still sliding smoothly over the top of his hat, which was some kind of nervous reaction I seemed to be having. When he lifted it to his mouth and kissed the tip of my finger, I couldn’t breathe. All the dirty, improper things he’d done to me in my imagination made him touching me now feel downright forbidden.

It was ridiculous considering the times we lived in, but a small part of me felt like Hester Prynne fromThe Scarlet Letter. Where was my big, fat, red A, which now in my mind stood for Aubrey, the floozy?

“C’mon, darlin’,” he said, “this don’t have to be the big thing you’re makin’ it out to be in your mind,” and when he reached over to swipe my hair away from my face, my heart began to race.

He was talking about the favor—the money he’d loaned me—but that wasn’t where my thoughts had gone. I was thinking about sex with Rye Graves. About how it would be beyond the pale, and how, right now, I didn’t care.

Was I really back here again? Letting myself get seduced so easily by any man who paid me the smallest bit of attention?

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